A Surgical Temptation

The Demonization of the Foreskin and the Rise of Circumcision in Britain

Robert Darby (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

368 Seiten

2005
University of Chicago Press (Verlag)
978-0-226-13645-5 (ISBN)

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In the eighteenth century, the Western world viewed circumcision as an embarrassing disfigurement peculiar to Jews. A century later, British doctors urged parents to circumcise their sons as a routine precaution against every imaginable sexual dysfunction, from syphilis and phimosis to masturbation and bed-wetting. Thirty years later the procedure again came under hostile scrutiny, culminating in its disappearance during the 1960s. Why Britain adopted a practice it had traditionally abhorred and then abandoned it after only two generations is the subject of A Surgical Temptation. Robert Darby reveals that circumcision has always been related to the question of how to control male sexuality. This study explores the process by which the male genitals, and the foreskin especially, were pathologized, while offering glimpses into the lives of such figures as James Boswell, John Maynard Keynes and W. H. Auden.
Examining the development of knowledge about genital anatomy, concepts of health, sexual morality, the rise of the medical profession, and the nature of disease, Darby shows how these factors transformed attitudes toward the male body and its management and played a vital role in the emergence of modern medicine.

Robert Darby is an independent medical historian and freelance writer. His most recent books is an abridged edition of George Drysdale's classic polemic against Victorian morality, Elements of Social Science. He lives in Canberra, Australia. Further information at www.historyofcircumcision.net.

Erscheint lt. Verlag	2.8.2005
Reihe/Serie	Emersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith
Sprache	englisch
Maße	16 x 24 mm
Gewicht	680 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
	Medizin / Pharmazie ► Medizinische Fachgebiete ► Urologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie ► Volkskunde
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	0-226-13645-0 / 0226136450
ISBN-13	978-0-226-13645-5 / 9780226136455
Zustand	Neuware